there are soldiers in my TV

There are soldiers in my TV!
running up the side of a mountain
breaking down doors
driving tanks
talking
taking orders
sending emails
playing video games
talking to their parents and wives


There are soldiers in my TV!
walking beside endless coffins
dressed in their finest uniforms
firing salutes
to try to make ourselves believe there is sense'
that lives go on
after the battle has torn them in two

There are soldiers in my TV!
crazy eighteen year olds
hopped up on testorone
riding the wave of their sexual peak

sublimating those lost fucks into energy
to keep moving through the desert
to keep fighting the forever war
to once more face a city filled with snipers and bombs



There are soldiers in my TV!
they lay wounded in tents
dying in hospitals
dead on the nightly news
a million and some prayers
for peace
remain unanswered
as if god himself
turned way
from our endless slaughter


There are soldiers in my TV!
shot and fallen
bloody stains on their chests
the flesh of their faces ripped away
blown up by road side bombs
layed by religious freaks
hopped up on heaven



There are soldiers in my TV!
crashed and dragged through dusty streets
becoming a macabe parade
as the cheering sunni's dance and cheer for death


There are soldiers in my TV!
in movies with beautiful people
playing out intricate plots
pasted over anti war messages
that are drowned out
by the seductive roar
of machine guns



There are soldiers in my TV!
I ache to hear we have won
that no more lives
will be sacrificed to the war
against the enemies of our culture
the ignorant fundamentalists would strip of us of our freedom
to listen to rock n roll
to love who we would

they would drag our women back into darker times
force their lies on all who would live
under the sinning sons of of a darker allah


There are soldiers in my TV!
I want to bring them home
to a peaceful world
where their blood isn't needed
the same old eutopia I have wanted
since I first learned to cry


There are soldiers in my TV!
when I change the channel
the world is only as big as the part that I see
as quiet as my sleepy neighborhood


























Along the Tigris River



















THOU SHALT NOT STEAL THE WRITINGS OF JOHN SCOTT RIDGWAY... YOU CAN EASILY GET PERMISSION FOR A NON COMMERCIAL REPRINT BY CONTACTING MY EMAIL.